


Him

by cornflakes_canvas



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Break Up, Childhood Memories, First Kiss, First Meetings, Hospitals, M/M, Marriage, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Parent Death, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 02:46:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cornflakes_canvas/pseuds/cornflakes_canvas
Summary: Dan's life before he meets Kyle.Kyle's life after he meets Dan.Two lives, interwoven.





	1. (I)

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could hug each and every person who has ever read one of my stupid stories.  
> Thank you ♥

Since he was a child, Dan had always been fascinated with snow.

Unfortunately, London winters remained a bitter disappointment.

 

Many a time he reminisced about his childhood, about being four years old, watching a popular animated film about a young fawn and pelting his dad with questions about the _white stuff_.

His father was thrilled about his son's curiosity and paused the grainy picture in order to show Dan an old black-and-white documentary about the travels of Roald Amundsen, feeling his own half-forgotten boyish excitement grow endlessly as the cloaked men fought their way through relentless snow masses, faces obscured by layer upon layer of fur-lined clothes covered in ice.

(Mr Smith was also quietly relieved to interrupt the film before they reached the disturbingly chirpy _la-di-da, spring is here and all the animals are singing in the forest_ bit.)

 

Perched on the edge of the sofa, knees drawn to his chest, Dan's gaze mirrored that of his father – wide and dark and filled with the nameless wonders of the world, the deep blue eagerly reflecting the white glow of the small television. And as Mr Smith watched his son, heart jumping proudly in his chest, he could not help but smile at the faint likeness his child seemed to bear to the lead character of the cartoon he had quite unceremoniously chucked out of the video recorder.

His little doe-eyed boy.

 

Later that same night, when Dan could not sleep because he was convinced that a haggard man with stern eyes and a big fur coat was skulking in the darkest corner of his room, Mr Smith realised that showing him a documentary that surely addressed an older audience had not been the best idea and attempted to persuade the boy not to tell Mrs Smith about what they had been up to while she was away. Kids being kids, Dan promised not to utter a word and then, in the morning, told his mother “Daddy showed me scary films” as soon as she came home from her shift at the hospital.

 

The first time Dan encountered snow at first hand was on a Sunday, the night after the weatherman on their fit-for-scrap radio predicted a drop in temperature for that very evening. Dan could not _possibly_ rein in his frenzy, unconcerned about the fact that London was descending into chaos as bus routes were brought to a standstill and masses of people pilgrimed to _Tesco_ to scavenge loaves of bread and egg cartons (just to be safe). The prospect of seeing the neighbourhood dusted with a tender white blanket was reason enough for Dan to have itchy feet all day, wrapping a long scarf around himself during dinner and scooping up the soup with knitted gloves adorning his small hands.

Mrs Smith smiled lovingly at her son, a hint of sadness spilling from her eyes as she awaited the disillusionment she was undoubtedly going to witness soon, though, when her husband tried to gently mitigate Dan's enthusiasm by reciting monotonous facts about the typically English weather, she kicked his shin under the table and shot him a death glare that shut him up in a matter of seconds.

 

The disappointment still hit Dan and it hit him hard. He and his dad hurried to the car park outside the building complex and waited, and when the snowflakes started falling, they were nothing but cold blotches of grey that barely made it to the ground and left nothing but wet stains on the dreary asphalt. Dan looked up at his father questioningly but the patriarch merely shrugged apologetically and jumped back into a stuttered explanation of city climate and whatnot – Dan didn't listen. In his modest world, this was a terrible betrayal.

 

That night, he watched _Bambi_ again and when the poor guy's mother vanished, Dan finally understood where exactly she had gone to, that she had not abandoned her little one or lost her way in the heavy snowstorm, and he wondered whether his cat Pebble had really run away all those months ago or whether his parents had simply wanted to spare him the tragic truth.

Dan went to bed feeling sad and alone. He felt sad for nearly a week and then Christmas was ushered in with a colourful medley of toys and treats and he forgot about the snow incident for a while as he revelled in the sparkling ornaments dangling from the small tree in their living room and let his reeling mind be soothed by the aromatic scent of the fruitcake Mrs Smith prepared in the poky kitchen. He closed his eyes in favour of listening to his father's attempts at wrapping presents late at night, the mumbled curses and sharp cutting sounds crisp in the still air. It was oddly calming at the same time as igniting a spark of anticipation in Dan that he had not felt in a long time.

 

Almost to the day one year later, Dan and his parents finally embarked on a long-planned trip to the tiny music store down the road to buy the six-year-old an electric piano. A colossal screen by the shop entrance was playing jolly Christmas songs, aiming at tempting the customers to test the expensive karaoke machine on display and fall in love with it, but the appliance seemed to be less than fully operational as _Jingle Bells_ sounded distinctly as if it was being played back four times slower and two octaves deeper, and Dan giggled as he watched the same image of Rudolph dashing through the snow repeating over and over again. But he was standing too close to the screen and soon, the flashing images made his eyes feel weird and he had to move away, blinking forcibly.

They chose a piano fairly quickly. It was small and basic and all they could afford – and Dan loved it. As soon as they returned home, Mrs Smith set up the instrument and started teaching Dan a piece she herself had adored when she was his age, a simplified arrangement of Chopin's _Berceuse_. He picked up on it quickly, astoundingly quickly, and Mrs Smith had tears in her eyes upon seeing her son so focused on the light-hearted music, eyes bright and cheeks flushed.

For the first time in two and a half months, he slept through the night without waking up, without moving aimlessly around the flat feeling out of place and restless. He did not wake up and his mother didn't sleep, unbelieving.

 

The winter after Dan started taking proper piano lessons (because he was desperate for _more_ and his mum was slowly but surely running out of half-forgotten pieces to teach him), Mr Smith died unexpectedly. Knowing that even if they had urged him to go to the doctor's sooner, nothing could have saved him, did not help one bit.

Dan was nine and on the day his father passed away, he woke up and he knew it was going to happen. His gut instinct was screaming at him to stay in the safety and comfort of their living room, and when his mum told him that it was time to go visit his dad, he refused. He didn't want it to become real, did not want to set in motion what was unavoidably going to come to pass.

Mrs Smith tried to persuade her son, tried to coax and soothe him, and when he still withdrew, she became desperate, angry. She yelled at him and her harsh voice, elevated by his heightened senses, made Dan feel like his eardrums were quivering. He locked himself in the bathroom, squeezing his small body into the tiny gap between the washing machine and the bathtub, palms pressed firmly against his ears but unable to fade down the loud thumping of his own racing heart. His mother continued trying to convince him to _stop being difficult_ , alternating between soft blandishments and strict commands.

Until the phone rang and her voice died down for a while. And he knew.

He knew.

 

His mother sold his piano three days before his eleventh birthday. They needed the money (and the space it took up). Five potential buyers came by their flat, navigating around boxes containing framed photographs, porcelain plates wrapped in thick brown paper, and books on top of atlases on top of _National Geographic_ magazines. There was a carton full of videotapes that Dan carefully avoided after spying a familiar black-and-white documentary on top, instead focusing his mind on the floorboards he lay stretched out on, exploring the smooth wood with his fingertips while he listened to his dad's extensive vinyl collection. It was his last chance – the record player was going on _eBay_.

When he had just finished listening to Antonín Dvořák's _New World Symphony_ , Mrs Smith stopped by his empty bedroom to plainly inform him that she had finally accepted one of the (almost offensive) offers for his instrument and Dan was forced to watch the jittery twenty-something student leave with his most precious possession tucked under his arm as if it was nothing but a piece of patched-up plastic.

 

A good ten months after moving into an even more claustrophobic place in an even more dismal part of the monstrous city (a flat that could best be described with the word _grey_ , though Dan's aunt optimistically and quite generously decorated it with heart-shaped fairy lights and red scatter cushions), Dan turned twelve and felt strangely _old_. He changed schools because Mrs Smith ditched the car and his old school was too far away to take the bus every morning. As if dealing with people, _in general_ , was not tiring enough without them being utterly mistrustful strangers.

So Dan figured that even if he got busted and the headmaster decided to call his mum to inform her that he was skipping class, she would most probably not take any even vaguely radical steps to put him in his place. She was too tired these days.

Getting off the bus four stops before his school instead of going to class felt great. It was a choice, _his_ choice. He was caught red-handed, wandering along the river throwing pebbles into the murky depths, and (surprisingly) his mother actually did give a damn and yelled at him for a very long time and with nearly as much passion as Dan had once been used to hearing in her voice. The familiar feeling of his heart thumping in his throat made Dan feel ... _something_ , for the first time since she took his piano. She was disappointed, had not thought he would ever do something like this, she said, but Dan had a hunch that, much like him, she was just desperately trying to _feel_.

 

He turned thirteen and got in trouble for hitching a ride on a motorbike, holding on to the leather jacket of a forty-something stranger who lived _somewhere_ in the residential neighbourhood and just grinned amusedly when Dan approached him with as much purpose as he could muster (and after a considerable period of self-encouragement) and demanded in a shaky voice to be taken along for a ride. The nosy retiree from across the road spied them as she was weeding the garden and phoned Dan's mum, and when Mrs Smith dragged her boy home by his arm, he experienced the verbal thunderstorm of a lifetime.

And though he played the role of the tough and rebellious son, he let out a deep breath as soon as his mum slammed the door after banning him to his bedroom for the foreseeable future, and thanked any shapeless higher power that may be listening that he was still alive. He was definitely never going to get a motorbike.

 

At age sixteen Dan hurt himself. It was an accident, the cut in his hand simply sitting on his skin for a breathless second before blood started pooling around it. He did not try to wipe it off or stop the bleeding, just observed the deep red as it dripped onto the snow-white cutting board, soaking the sliced cucumber and spring onions. The pain was sharp at first, then ascended into a dull sensation. He bandaged his hand amateurishly and when his mum came home from work that night, she descended into a minor meltdown and took him right back to the hospital to get stitches. It was the first time since his dad had passed away that Dan saw something akin to worry in her tired eyes and he thought that _maybe_ they were finally going to get better.

 

She forgot his seventeenth birthday. Dan went along with it because he hoped she would realise the next day and feel terrible about forgetting. Five days later, he came home from yet another tedious day at school to find a small yellow card decorated with cartoon bees and pink flowers lying on the kitchen table. Its emotional scope encompassed a generic pre-printed message as well as a ten-pound voucher for the local bookshop, and Dan was tempted to scribble a short _thanks for nothing_ underneath his mum's rushed signature (not _mum_ but her first name, as if she was perforce writing to some distant uncle who lived in a secluded hamlet somewhere in the East Midlands). He ended up giving the voucher to someone at his school who, in return, gave him a small bottle of red wine, probably stolen from some oenophile aunt's basement. Not that Dan had asked for any sort of consideration.

 

He was nineteen, nearly twenty, when he met Kyle and he liked him before seeing him (though the sight of his face certainly multiplied the intensity of the impact the younger man had on him). The heat was barely tolerable when Kyle popped up at the hospital that Dan had been admitted to a few days prior – visiting, it seemed –, sitting in a hallway close to Dan's room and plucking the strings of a ukulele that was covered in cat stickers like he bloody owned the place. Dan's first instinct was to stay away from him (he was too suave, too self-assured), but the way Kyle's fingers caressed the instrument so effortlessly made Dan's heart beat faster, made him feel like his head was being held under water. Soon enough, the younger man looked at Dan with unconcealed curiosity.

 

“Alright?” he asked, smiling warmly, and Dan continued staring at his fingers.

He had buried his hands in the pockets of his cardigan and kept twisting and twisting the loose fabric, then furrowed his brow and said in a small voice, “You played a wrong chord.”

And Kyle laughed joyfully, a sound as clear and simple and beautiful as silver bells, and watched Dan with a glint in his eye.

 

Dan was twenty-one when Kyle kissed him for the first time, in the mouldy, disgustingly humid bathroom of some dingy pub. Kyle's friend Ralph had signed Dan up for a tiny gig after hearing him sing and Dan wanted to give it a try, felt emboldened by his friends' enthusiasm and confidence, but when he saw all the strange faces in the crowd scrutinising him, judging him by his appearance long before Dan even had a chance to take a seat behind the borrowed keyboard, he wavered. A glass broke somewhere to his left and a small, dark corner of his brain warned him that these people were going to annihilate him if he so much as opened his mouth, prompting him to stumble off the exposing platform and towards the toilets.

 

Kyle followed him close behind and Dan was vaguely aware that he was rambling endlessly (what about, he had no idea) before he became more than vaguely aware of Kyle's lips connecting firmly with his own. Some drunk guy staggered through the swinging door, stared at them and shouted a sincere “Well done, Kyle!” before throwing up in one of the dirty sinks – and somehow it was still the best thing that had ever happened to Dan.

Nobody would ever love another person as much as he loved Kyle. This, he was certain of.

It was a bitter winter and though it did not snow, whenever he remembered that night, Dan imagined it had. He would picture them walking home hand in hand, their shoes leaving clean and perfect footprints on the smooth, white surface, the fragile crystals getting caught in Kyle's hair, his beard, his eyelashes.

 

He would look at Kyle and _know_.

It was him.

It was always going to be him.

 


	2. (II)

Kyle's life became a lot more complicated and so much brighter on the day he met Dan.

 

He was eighteen, visiting his cousin at the institution she was staying in, and had brought along his trashy ukulele – his ragged attempts at pretending to be a musician always cheered her up.

Kyle played for about ten minutes (whatever came to mind, really) before he looked up and saw him _staring_ – a pale, skinny guy with big blue eyes, brows furrowed in concentration, hair like a bird's nest, his fingers slender and beautiful.

 

“You play the piano.”

It wasn't a question, Kyle could see it. But to his surprise, the other shook his head, a perceptible enough gesture despite its subtlety. When he didn't elaborate and instead kept staring, Kyle tried again, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“You used to,” he stated and Dan looked heartbroken.

Kyle immediately regretted saying anything at all.

 

The next time he came round, Kyle brought a tiny, shoddy keyboard he had found in his nana's attic for Dan to try his hand at and the older boy was so excited as he pressed the childishly colourful buttons that supposedly regulated the tinny sound of what could barely be called an instrument that Kyle's heart broke right in half, and caught off-guard by the bright and unexpected joy radiating from the other, his heart selfishly decided to keep Dan close forever (not that Kyle had any right to be consulted about matters that would forever alter the course of his life).

 

He kept his word, albeit never spoken aloud, and they stayed in touch, exchanging daily _good morning_ and _sweet dreams_ texts (and a lot of flirtatious nonsense in between) until Kyle turned nineteen and started going to university, and Dan moved into his shitty flat four months later, after having landed an ill-paid job as a waiter in a small, sparsely frequented coffee shop off-campus. Kyle was as giddy as he had been before his first ever trip to Disneyland when Dan rang the doorbell and officially moved in with all his belongings (which apparently fit into a single duffel bag).

They ordered cheap Chinese takeaway and sat and ate on the floor, windows wide open and listening to the previous tenant's radio (which sounded as if it had been used as a volleyball once or twice), and as Leonard Cohen's _Hallelujah_ rang out, they gazed upon the city, feeling like everything was finally coming together, like their lives were waiting for them to catch up to the fact that they were free to do whatever they wanted to do.

 

The first time Kyle said those three words was on one of the hottest days of the year. Their crowded flat was vibrating with smouldering heat, the screams of the crickets sounding ear-splitting to their aching heads. For once they did not, _could_ not, close the windows in an attempt to shut out the maddening roadway noise (unless they wanted to risk suffocating) and so they had to deal with it all – the sounds, the smells, the impenetrable air.

Dan had been disquietingly _out of it_ for days, had not left their home in a week, appearing dangerously lethargic and utterly drained as he lay on their unmade bed. It quickly dawned on Kyle that this time, Dan would not just _snap out of it_ after a while and his heart sank.

 

The night he told Dan, their T-shirts stuck uncomfortably to their skin, sweat soaking every inch of their bodies, the sweltering heat almost visible to the naked eye. Dan took a shuddering breath and whispered _“I can't do it”_ and Kyle held on to him for dear life, muttering over and over that he was going to be okay. He spoke until the sun rose, searing his back as he gazed at Dan, at the shadows under his eyes and the tear tracks on his cheeks, and he touched his forehead to Dan's and said _I Love You_ with more desperate devotion than Kyle had ever felt in his heart. He kissed him and his lips were salty with sweat and tears, and it was too hot and they were beautifully shattered, but never had they loved with more conviction.

 

They got married when Kyle was twenty-three. Not legally, because Dan didn't _believe in marriage_ , whatever the hell that meant, but they _made a promise_ , in a childish, drunken, awkward, distinctly _them_ ceremony performed by their close and equally wasted friend William.

Dan had just turned twenty-five and Kyle threw him a party. A tiny party, admittedly, seeing as only the two men and three of their friends were present, but a party nevertheless.

(To quote Woody: “There's booze. It's a party.”)

Amidst drinking a lot of cheap vodka, they opened a bottle of revolting wine which Dan had pulled out of thin air, announcing that it was his seventeenth birthday present. They shared it, the five of them, and Will inarticulately slurred something about vows as Kyle placed one of his rings on Dan's finger and they kissed to their friends' roaring cheers.

Afterwards, they ran to the park in front of the house, stumbling in the dark and laughing as they set off illegal fireworks until they suspected the smoke might poison them and Dan got worried about scaring good old Mrs Shelby, their elderly neighbour from across the hall.

 

Kyle finished university shortly thereafter and miraculously found a humble job at a nameless design company, and after having their landlord notify them of mouldy walls and health risks, they moved into an even smaller place even further from the city centre in hesitant agreement. Dan finally got admitted to university, after years and years of trying and being turned down, and it was hard, but they just about _managed_. Kyle worked overtime and Dan did his best to contribute, juggling two different jobs between classes and exams.

On their second fake wedding anniversary, Kyle bought Dan a keyboard, a decent one that would sound so much better in a big hall than in their cramped, poorly insulated flat. But it was a start and on the night they set it up in the bedroom (after somehow managing to heave it up four flights of stairs and through the front door without breaking the thing or collapsing), Kyle lay on their bed and listened to Dan quietly singing _Killing Me Softly_ , his fingers grazing the keys like silk.

(He did shed a tear or two and Dan mocked him for it, but Kyle knew that his lover was silently moved.)

 

They stayed up all night, fingertips drawing loving patterns on each other's faces, hypnotised by the city lights casting a soft neon glow on their skin. They loved each other until they felt a contented sleepiness overtake their senses and decided to watch a documentary on snow leopards on Dan's annoyingly noisy laptop, prompting Kyle to determine and declare that he wanted a cat.

They couldn't keep a pet now, even if Mrs Shelby's cat had just had babies, did not have the money or space or time to care for one, but Dan cradled Kyle's face between his hands and gave his word, promised with a smile on his face, that they were going to move into a much more spacious flat, _soon_ , and they would adopt a cat. Two cats if he wanted.

But now, confined to this small, sordid home, it was only them, and even if they had to take cold showers and eat ready meals most days, had to listen to the neighbours scream at each other at four in the morning and share their washing machine with a dozen people who had never heard of colour separation, it was _theirs_ and they were in love and screw everyone who said their relationship would not survive.

 

It didn't survive.

 

Dan became distant, cold. Hardly spoke, barely touched. Dan worked nights and Kyle worked days, at hours that didn't allow for them to see each other all too often and at first, they _hated_ it, desperate to be in each other's arms – yet soon enough, Kyle started feeling like Dan embraced the physical barrier between them.

Then, without warning, he dropped out of university, quit his jobs and never told Kyle why. And Kyle got angry, he couldn't support both of them, Dan needed to do his part – or at least tell him why he stopped caring. In his heart, he knew that it wasn't Dan's fault. They needed to talk about these things, Kyle had to make Dan see that he was not alone.

But he didn't. And Dan remained so painfully indifferent that Kyle soon went along with it and stopped caring as well.

 

Feeling stranded, stuck in this emotional state, Kyle met _her_. Hilarious, kind and, God, _beautiful_ , and she was eager to move on from the curious post-university state of mind that was still filled with a strange reluctance to be too serious about _anything_ , was ready to start living. Soon enough, Kyle confronted Dan, asked him how he was supposed to hold on to him when there was nothing _holding him_. They fought for a while, a confrontation that was not blatant in volume but loud in the emotions expressed, and at two in the morning, Kyle decided that it was over. Quick and easy, he thought. Part of him was still lingering over that wisp of hope, the desire to see Dan fight for them, so maybe they could _figure it out_. But Dan just nodded and accepted it.

And Kyle left without looking back.

 

He was twenty-eight when he got engaged, properly. On one knee, holding a shining ring for his teary-eyed future wife to take as she answered _the_ question with a heartfelt, all but shouted _yes_.

They settled in, adopted a cat called Rocky, and the Disney DVD collection on the shelf in their living room grew and grew and looked amazingly colourful and cute. And though Kyle was still hurting, deep down, and missed his old mates that he had long lost contact with, he was _happy_. This was his new life, the life he deserved.

Kyle and his fiancée planned proper date nights, went to the cinema quite regularly and even booked seats at the theatre a couple times, dined out at nice restaurants and attended cultural events and concerts that did not take place in some friend's acquaintance's uncle's basement. They had a tight-knit circle of friends – most of them married, some with kids, some with dogs, always welcoming and cheery. They travelled around Europe and were invited to rooftop barbecues and she taught Kyle how to sew and bake and said she wanted them to have kids together, _someday_.

 

On the day Dan turned thirty Kyle woke up at an ungodly, desolate hour feeling deeply melancholic. He slunk out onto the balcony and stood there, on the cold tiles, for nearly an hour and a half, staring at the houses beneath, listening to the ascending birdsong and debating whether or not he should call Dan. He wasn't sure why but he felt like he had to. He needed to. Until she came up behind him and circled her arms around his waist, asking whether he wanted coffee, and Kyle set his phone aside, leaving it on the table next to the flourishing thyme herb named Rufus in order to follow her inside.

_Let sleeping dogs lie_ they say, and he did.

 

And yet, one can only live in a dream for so long until they realise it's just that. A dream.

And this dream, the dream of a perfect home and a perfect girl and a perfect life – it was not his, was not right. It felt hollow, as if he was living his own take on _The Truman Show_.

But his life wasn't a multi-million dollar film and Kyle didn't come home to Dan sitting on his doorstep in the pouring rain, he didn't almost get married to his stunning bride-to-be only to see Dan's face flash before his eyes as the guests were staring at him, holding their breath and waiting for him to say the one word that would tie the knot. He didn't run into Dan by pure chance, at some lifeless party or the supermarket and realised, with a montage of their greatest moments playing in the back of his mind, what he had given up on.

 

He simply returned from work one day, greeted by the smell of home-made dinner and scented candles, welcomed by his fiancée who was smiling at him lovingly, her hair tied up in a messy bun, some of the golden strands falling loosely around her face, and her gaze flicked a switch in his head, a yearning cry for what he had left behind on that lonely day all those years ago.

And he knew.

“I can't do it.”

The words sounded outrageous, even to his own ears, and Kyle knew that he was being a selfish bastard, breaking her heart in the most obnoxious manner, knew that she deserved so much better than this, better than _him_. But he still left on that same night, stuffed some clothes into a duffel bag and, undeterred by her sobbing, let the door fall shut with a soft, final click behind him.

Kyle suspected that Dan would not have changed his phone number over the years, _hoped_ he hadn't, and as he stood in the freezing January air outside their old flat, he sent the older man a short text. He did not tell him he loved him, didn't apologise for walking away.

 

Just one line. If Dan was out there, he would understand.

Kyle waited, perched on a bench in the park where they had lit fireworks all those years ago, heart tormenting his ribcage in a stuttering pulse, and he had to laugh at himself, for thinking there was ever going to be someone else. For thinking he could have the perfect life without Dan. The term _perfect_ did not exist in a world without him.

Dan was the moon and Kyle had been stuck at the lowest ebb for far too long.

 

And while he sat in the dark shivering fiercely, he cast his mind back to rainy days and clumsy kisses and stale booze, to broken pianos and broken hearts and nights filled with films he neither liked nor understood. He thought back to Dan singing for him when he was battling the mother of all flus, to making Dan laugh so hard in the shower that he banged his head on the tap and Kyle had to take him to the hospital in a cab. To fighting and fighting and Dan announcing angrily that he was going to sleep on the sofa until Kyle could feel him crawling back into bed in the middle of the night, pressing his icy feet against Kyle's bare legs, a last outburst of retaliation before he buried his face in his lover's chest. He thought about every single one of the rare _I Love You's_ he had heard from Dan over the years they had lived together, and about the uncounted gigs they had attended, from pressing their sweaty bodies together and dancing awkwardly to going home afterwards, stumbling through the door laughing deliriously and tearing at each other's clothes.

Kyle thought back to the first time he had laid eyes on Dan and knew that he was never going to let him go.

 

Fighting the notion that years had passed, years without any form of contact, and that Dan might be married by now, might have moved away or become a monk for all he knew, Kyle's eyes fell on a vague movement on the darkened path to his right and he spotted a tall, skinny figure approaching him slowly, cautiously.

And as they stared at one another, still several feet apart and so many questions threatening to erupt from the blue eyes watching him, Kyle felt something cold brush his cheek.

 

Dan paused in the middle of the damp pathway (with his terribly slouching posture and the tattered Converse, wrapped in that stupid cardigan that Kyle had wanted to get rid of years ago), and Kyle never took his eyes off him as he noticed them – heavy snowflakes soaring down around them and quickly melting on the wet ground. Dan opened his mouth and Kyle held his breath, anticipating whatever the other was going to say, waiting to finally hear his voice again after years filled with deafening silence.

“Isn't English snow just the biggest fucking disappointment?” Dan said loudly and Kyle laughed.

 

There he was.

_Him_.

It had always been him.

 


End file.
